Examining unRAID Storage
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Some of you may have heard of the hobby storage system called unRAID which promotes itself as a RAID alternative. It, however, it not actually a RAID alternative, but actually just low end software RAID 4 mixed with built in hybrid RAID options.
unRAID is a purely software product, no hardware components, and uses a single parity data protection scheme with a dedicated parity disk (aka RAID 4.) The hybrid nature comes from the fact that the implementation uses the largest disk in the array as the parity disk so that any other disks, of any size, can be used. This means that unRAID is not as reliable, nor as performant, as normal RAID 4, as it cannot evenly use all drives in the array for operations. And RAID 4 is commonly already not as fast as RAID 5, due to the dedicated parity spindle. And RAID 4 suffers from uneven wear and tear, making it increasingly risky compared to RAID 5, even before considering the additional risks added by the hybrid "feature."
unRAID is, without a doubt, a "never use" technology. It lacks any technical benefits to make it viable, and adds on problems such as being consumer only without any enterprise support, being closed source, and have no major vendor behind it.
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Just looked it up, it isn't cheap either. It's like $60 for a very limited use license and like $120 if you want to be able to scale up as large as the software goes. But with a crappy protection scheme like that, why would anyone want to scale it up?
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unRAID is really bad, I have posted many times in SW that I would recommend FreeNAS before I even get to unRAID. I have seen many bad stories using UnRaid.
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@dbeato said in Examining unRAID Storage:
unRAID is really bad, I have posted many times in SW that I would recommend FreeNAS before I even get to unRAID. I have seen many bad stories using UnRaid.
I would agree with that. Bad to the point of worse than FreeNAS.
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@reid-cooper said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@dbeato said in Examining unRAID Storage:
unRAID is really bad, I have posted many times in SW that I would recommend FreeNAS before I even get to unRAID. I have seen many bad stories using UnRaid.
I would agree with that. Bad to the point of worse than FreeNAS.
Ha ha, unRAID... filling that gap between OpenFiler and FreeNAS
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@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@reid-cooper said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@dbeato said in Examining unRAID Storage:
unRAID is really bad, I have posted many times in SW that I would recommend FreeNAS before I even get to unRAID. I have seen many bad stories using UnRaid.
I would agree with that. Bad to the point of worse than FreeNAS.
Ha ha, unRAID... filling that gap between OpenFiler and FreeNAS
lol
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@travisdh1 said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@reid-cooper said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@dbeato said in Examining unRAID Storage:
unRAID is really bad, I have posted many times in SW that I would recommend FreeNAS before I even get to unRAID. I have seen many bad stories using UnRaid.
I would agree with that. Bad to the point of worse than FreeNAS.
Ha ha, unRAID... filling that gap between OpenFiler and FreeNAS
lol
Where train wreck meets cluster fudge.
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@scottalanmiller Oh no, unRAID might be worse than Openfiler. No way to run them anyway.
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@dbeato said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@scottalanmiller Oh no, unRAID might be worse than Openfiler. No way to run them anyway.
That's hard to believe. If unRAID even functions it is better than OF.
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@scottalanmiller I guess...
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I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
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@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
Why not just use KVM? What does unRAID bring to the table?
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@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
Why not just use KVM? What does unRAID bring to the table?
A very large library of pre-made docker containers, plugins and customizations that allow you to do all manner of things and a very active dedicated community. Great for a home network since most of them can be deployed in a few clicks.
As an example, I had a pre-made Emby server up and running in about 30 seconds with a pre built docker container.
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
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@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
Why not just use KVM? What does unRAID bring to the table?
A very large library of pre-made docker containers, plugins and customizations that allow you to do all manner of things and a very active dedicated community. Great for a home network since most of them can be deployed in a few clicks.
As an example, I had a pre-made Emby server up and running in about 30 seconds with a pre built docker container.
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
That's why you have a standard linux vm template that you can deploy in a few seconds.
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@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
Why not just use KVM? What does unRAID bring to the table?
A very large library of pre-made docker containers, plugins and customizations that allow you to do all manner of things and a very active dedicated community. Great for a home network since most of them can be deployed in a few clicks.
As an example, I had a pre-made Emby server up and running in about 30 seconds with a pre built docker container.
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
But isn’t a Linux install faster? How does unRAID make it easier? Docker installs are trivial.
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@travisdh1 said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@scottalanmiller said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
I'd not use it in an enterprise production environment but I use it at home, have done so for the last 2 or so years. Works just fine for my use, plus I get to use the hardware it's on for other things such as some docker containers and one or two VMs.
Before that I ran FreeNAS, and was not as happy with it, kept having kernel issues and could not get it to update.
Why not just use KVM? What does unRAID bring to the table?
A very large library of pre-made docker containers, plugins and customizations that allow you to do all manner of things and a very active dedicated community. Great for a home network since most of them can be deployed in a few clicks.
As an example, I had a pre-made Emby server up and running in about 30 seconds with a pre built docker container.
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
That's why you have a standard linux vm template that you can deploy in a few seconds.
Right. I feel like I could have a Linux server up and running before I could complete the purchase transaction of something.
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@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
It HAS to be faster to deploy Linux than unRAID. I mean, it literally seems like an impossible thing to say. And Docket is this...
dnf install dockerThat's all that there is. Docker is super fast and easy to install.
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unRAID is a turnkey solution, with hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-build add-ons, plugins and docker containers. This lowers the barrier to entry significantly for most people and for me it means deploying services on my home network with minimal need for research or parsing how-tos.
Would a vanilla Linux install with KVM and Docker to what unRAID does, yes it would. Would that be a "better" way to go? Well that entirely depends on how you define better. In my case, no it would not as I do not have the time or inclination to spend the time to tune that just right for my needs, instead I want to click on the library of add-ons/pre-built docker containers, find the one that I need and click install and start using it.
Do I care that I am not getting the performance of a true RAID 5 or 10? No, I do not. Do I care that the redundancy of the server is not as good as a RAID 10? Once again, no, not really. The unRAID setup can suffer a single drive failure and still allow me to rebuild, and I am ok with that. It can suffer more than one drive failing, with some data loss as opposed to a RAID 10 where multiple drive failures = all data gone, and I am ok with that too.
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@strongbad said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
It HAS to be faster to deploy Linux than unRAID. I mean, it literally seems like an impossible thing to say. And Docket is this...
dnf install dockerThat's all that there is. Docker is super fast and easy to install.
Yeah, that's just docker installed. You then need to create the container with the solution in it that you want to use, and this would be far more time consuming that just a single command. In unRAID I locate the pre-built docker container with the app in it that I want to use and click install. 30 seconds later it is installed and ready to go.
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@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@strongbad said in Examining unRAID Storage:
@jrc said in Examining unRAID Storage:
Yes, I could do this with a stand alone linux install, but ain't no one got time for that.
It HAS to be faster to deploy Linux than unRAID. I mean, it literally seems like an impossible thing to say. And Docket is this...
dnf install dockerThat's all that there is. Docker is super fast and easy to install.
Yeah, that's just docker installed. You then need to create the container with the solution in it that you want to use, and this would be far more time consuming that just a single command. In unRAID I locate the pre-built docker container with the app in it that I want to use and click install. 30 seconds later it is installed and ready to go.
That's how Docker works universally.
